I bought the Soot Eater from Amazon and tried it today.
I bought it, because my fireplace chimney tops out at 38 ft. from the ground and I an NOT comfortable going up that high on a ladder, even if I had one that tall. In addition, my town (pop 25,000) has no advertised chimney sweeps, and I’ll likely need to get one from 50 miles away to come to my house; I’m sure that won’t come cheaply. Anyway, a “bottom-up” approach to cleaning my chimney myself seemed an irresistible opportunity.
But there were problems. First of all, you’re supposed to trim the SootEater’s floppy silicon appendages to fit your chimney size; and there’s no way for me to tell even if I have a square, rectangular, or circular chimney flue, nor how wide it is. My fireplace chimney is masonry, 100 years old. Without getting on the roof, who knows? I tried sticking my head inside my insert, but couldn’t really see anything, and even with a flashlight and a mirror couldn’t tell. I’m guessing its a big rectangular flue, so I decided not to trim the threads. But who knows?
I know the Soot Eater only goes up 18 ft and my chimney is much taller, but before I spent the money on a second set of rods I wanted to see if it works. I hooked up the rods and connected the electric drill, gently threaded (jammed) the spinny-thingy into the chimney past my insert’s baffles. I pushed it up 18 ft. and then started the electric drill. It worked.
Here’s the funny thing: Pulling it out slowly, I had to walk away from the fireplace to keep my finger on the the drill power ..... but that made the interlocking rods between me and the fireplace resemble a jump rope doing double-dutch. NOTE TO SELF: this job needs two people. and the one next to the fireplace holding and guiding the rods needs to wear gloves to hold onto the rapidly spinning rods without getting “rod-burns” on the hands.
I went up and down a couple times,but my electric drill didn’t have a “reverse” setting to reverse the spinning direction like the Soot Eater’s instructions advised. In the lower half of the chimney in 10 minutes, I got less than a cupful of creasote ... black, coal-like particles. Only a cupful? I expected more. Do you think the upper half of the chimney has more creosote (I’ve been burning for 3-4 years as a “fireplace” since the last chimney sweep inspection, before I bought my insert this past fall. Or did the Soot Eater just not do the job?
I’d love to hear of anyone who did the Soot Eater thing and THEN had a chimney sweep come to evaluate (or did the job over with your own brushes) --- anything less is just guessing. To believe the Soot Eater does a good job, requires me to believe 3 years of a fireplace and 1 year of a EPA insert cooking the whole winter only built up 1/2 cup of creosote in the lower half of the chimney. Does this sound reasonable?
I will definately order another Soot Eater and use the extra rods to go up to the top of my chimney. I’ll write how it does after I give it a try.....
Mike
I bought it, because my fireplace chimney tops out at 38 ft. from the ground and I an NOT comfortable going up that high on a ladder, even if I had one that tall. In addition, my town (pop 25,000) has no advertised chimney sweeps, and I’ll likely need to get one from 50 miles away to come to my house; I’m sure that won’t come cheaply. Anyway, a “bottom-up” approach to cleaning my chimney myself seemed an irresistible opportunity.
But there were problems. First of all, you’re supposed to trim the SootEater’s floppy silicon appendages to fit your chimney size; and there’s no way for me to tell even if I have a square, rectangular, or circular chimney flue, nor how wide it is. My fireplace chimney is masonry, 100 years old. Without getting on the roof, who knows? I tried sticking my head inside my insert, but couldn’t really see anything, and even with a flashlight and a mirror couldn’t tell. I’m guessing its a big rectangular flue, so I decided not to trim the threads. But who knows?
I know the Soot Eater only goes up 18 ft and my chimney is much taller, but before I spent the money on a second set of rods I wanted to see if it works. I hooked up the rods and connected the electric drill, gently threaded (jammed) the spinny-thingy into the chimney past my insert’s baffles. I pushed it up 18 ft. and then started the electric drill. It worked.
Here’s the funny thing: Pulling it out slowly, I had to walk away from the fireplace to keep my finger on the the drill power ..... but that made the interlocking rods between me and the fireplace resemble a jump rope doing double-dutch. NOTE TO SELF: this job needs two people. and the one next to the fireplace holding and guiding the rods needs to wear gloves to hold onto the rapidly spinning rods without getting “rod-burns” on the hands.
I went up and down a couple times,but my electric drill didn’t have a “reverse” setting to reverse the spinning direction like the Soot Eater’s instructions advised. In the lower half of the chimney in 10 minutes, I got less than a cupful of creasote ... black, coal-like particles. Only a cupful? I expected more. Do you think the upper half of the chimney has more creosote (I’ve been burning for 3-4 years as a “fireplace” since the last chimney sweep inspection, before I bought my insert this past fall. Or did the Soot Eater just not do the job?
I’d love to hear of anyone who did the Soot Eater thing and THEN had a chimney sweep come to evaluate (or did the job over with your own brushes) --- anything less is just guessing. To believe the Soot Eater does a good job, requires me to believe 3 years of a fireplace and 1 year of a EPA insert cooking the whole winter only built up 1/2 cup of creosote in the lower half of the chimney. Does this sound reasonable?
I will definately order another Soot Eater and use the extra rods to go up to the top of my chimney. I’ll write how it does after I give it a try.....
Mike
